‘Glock’ Author: Gun Foes Engaged In ‘Futile Exercise’

An accessories manufacturer examines a military grade Remington ACR Special Purpose Rifle at a gun show in Las Vegas, January 2013. (Julie Jacobson/AP)

Supporters of stricter gun control legislation are once again making themselves heard, after the mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard this week.

Paul Barrett, senior writer at Bloomberg Businessweek and author of “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun,” argues that gun control advocates underestimate the grassroots support for gun rights, and overstate the ability of proposed gun control legislation to prevent such shootings.

“Unfortunately, all the participants in this debate — the most vocal participants — tend to go immediately for the most radioactive approach to the issue, rather than going to the more common sense, middle ground approaches,” Barrett told Here & Now. “And that’s why we have no progress.”

Barrett says a more effective way to talk about guns and gun laws is to frame it as a conversation on crime deterrence.

“You can frame advocacy of comprehensive background checks as a purely anti-crime step,” Barrett said. “If you frame it in that narrow way, you make this cause much more rational and you take it away from the second amendment.”